With whatever voice you have

Being a voice teacher for worship singers can be tricky. Even approaching the topic can be uncertain - what is the right standpoint on it? Should worship singers have voice lessons? Is it wrong to care about how we sound as worship singers and worship leaders?

I honestly don’t know what the RIGHT answer is - but i can share with you my opinion and maybe it will resonate with you.

Let’s start with this - i recently saw a well known worship leader post on instagram and her words struck something deep within me. She said she will worship with whatever voice she has for all her days (along those lines). I loved that. God loves our WORSHIP. It’s not about our voice or how pretty it is. But he loves our heart and what we offer him. He loves our devotion and our desire to be with him.

Our first and foremost desire should always be to worship Jesus. To bring Him glory. When that is the most important thing, when He is, then it doesn’t matter if our voice falls a bit flat, or if we can’t sing that big note, or if we have a coughing fit when leading worship (this has happened multiple times to me). My hope and goal is to help singers and my voice students to feel excited and willing to worship and serve their worship teams.

But here is the next part..

Yes, we should worship God with whatever voice we have
But as worship leaders (all singers who lead others to worship, so backing vocalists, this means you too!), we should continuously strive to give God our best. Our best voice.

Throughout our lives and our seasons, our voices will change. We will have Sundays where we can offer more and Sundays where we might bring a tired voice. We will be called to step into times where we feel our voices aren’t big enough, but we have an amazing God who works through our weaknesses.

But God is holy and worthy of our best.

I am not content with leading in a lukewarm way. I know I can grow my voice, my gifting, and give God an even greater offering of worship. And i know that growing it will also serve my church better.

I always come back to this quote - The only reason for mastering technique is to make sure the body does not prevent the soul from expressing itself
I don’t want ANYTHING to prevent my soul from worshipping my Father in heaven, including my own body and it’s limitations. To grow and develop as a worship singer can bring us closer to Jesus, can elevate our worship, can free us to more radical moments.

But - you first need to be willing to worship Jesus with whatever voice you have.